VOWELS IN STANDARD AUSTRIAN GERMAN - Acoustics ...

Sylvia Moosmüller
back cavity affiliation of F3. Figure 4.9 also displays the stepwise change in vowel
quality in dependence on the speaking task or degree of formality.
The [–constricted] unrounded pre-palatal vowel /ç/ is not affected by this problem,
since the originally higher constriction degree prevents a switch in cavity affiliation. It
can be seen from Figure 4.10 that F2, F3, and F4 are approximately evenly spaced.
Figure 4.10: Average spectrum of the vowel /ç/ taken from the logatome “pibbe”, speaker sp012.
The primary difference between /i/ and /ç/ is tongue-palate distance, i.e. constriction
degree. This parameter affects all formants; as constriction is widened, F1 increases 76 ,
and F2 and F3 decrease monotonously. Therefore, F1 has to be higher for /ç/ than for /i/,
F2 has to be lower or equal 77 , and F3 has to be lower within each speaking task or
prosodic position. However, Pouplier et al. (2004) pointed out that tongue-palate
distances were neutralized between the pair /i/ – /ç/ for all three subjects. Tables 4.12 –
4.14 give the mean F1, F2, and F3 values for the pair /i/ – /ç/.
76 However, the degree of lip aperture is the most obvious correlate of F1 (Hoole 1997).
77 Depending on the cavity affiliation of F2.
88